Federated Ontology System: was semantic technologies training/request

On Tuesday, January 06, 2009 7:06 PM, Enrico Motta wrote:
"...if you look at the SW as it is today, you can already see thousands and 
thousands of alternative
conceptualizations. This is why the NeOn project is developing a variety of 
practical solutions
that focus on enabling the development, maintenance and use of networked 
ontologies, rather than assuming that some individual or
organization will give us the 'global ontology'."

Dear Enrico,

There is the whole point which somebody of us missing. The issue is, how you 
are doing the networking of domain ontologies.  What one read as a 
definition: "A Network of Ontologies is a collection of ontologies related 
together via a variety of different relationships such as mapping, 
modularization, version and  dependency relationships".  Softly speking, it 
is not very productive to think that way; for nobody in the world, in no 
time and money, is capable to interrelate in such ways an innumerable number 
of particular ontologies, distributed, autonomous and heterogeneous, with 
their specific local schemas, semantics, languages, formats, data models, 
and structures.
Seemingly, You had an impression that i suggested a centralized, unitary 
ontology system governed by a single global schema. This is not the case. 
This matter is now also discussed on the Ontolog Forum. Some main points. I 
am talking about a realistic, flexible and scalable model of a federated 
(web) ontology [used in Ontopaedia, check the Index page, 
http://www.eis.com.cy]. The model implies such effective notions as 
"ontology federation", "federated ontology system", "federated global 
schema", 'federated ontology architecture", and "federated local schemas".
 The notion of a federal union proved its viability in politics as a federal 
form of government, where power is divided between a central authority and 
regional authorities. Also, it was successfully applied in the database 
theory and practice, as "a federated architecture for database systems" or 
"a federated architecture for information management".
Now, alike with the power, knowledge is divided between a central ontology 
and regional ontologies. Then a federation ontology will consist of a single 
central ontology (maintaining the global schema, the semantics, the 
topology, the entry of new ontologies) and a multitude of component 
ontologies with own
local schemas,  but members of the federation. There are technical issues, 
such as federated mechanism, semantic management, schemas integration and 
coordination, search, information retrieval and query processing, etc. But 
what is essential: the reality of the concept of Federated Ontology System, 
which, to my experience, looks more promising than any (botom-top) 
nonfederated ontology systems, either unitary or centralized or loose and 
unconnected, currently prevailing and propagating as pandemic on the WWW.

kind regards,
Azamat Abdoullaev
http://www.eis.com.cy


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Enrico Motta" <e.motta@open.ac.uk>
To: "Azamat" <abdoul@cytanet.com.cy>
Cc: "'SW-forum'" <semantic-web@w3.org>; <paola.dimaio@gmail.com>
Sent: Tuesday, January 06, 2009 7:06 PM
Subject: Re: semantic technologies training/request



At 20:18 +0200 30/12/08, Azamat wrote:
>¤
>On Sunday, December 28, 2008 12:55, Paola wrote:
>"PMI am starting to be introduced to great sw tools being released by the 
>various EU funded projects, for which lots and lots
>of public money is been used such as 
><http://ontoware.org/>http://ontoware.org/ as well as lots of others"
>
>Paola,
>Thanks for an intersting link.
>
>I was intrigued to see what is presented as "ontoware", finding the 
>following  project as most engaging, 
><http://www.neon-project.org/web-content/>http://www.neon-project.org/web-content/. 
>Being surprised with overwhelming ontological activities, one is attracted 
>to browse the project boasting that:
>"NeOn is a 14.7 million Euros project involving 14 European partners and 
>co-funded by the European Commissionıs Sixth Framework Programme under 
>grant number IST-2005-027595. NeOn started in March 2006 and has a duration 
>of 4 years. Our aim is to advance the state of the art in using ontologies 
>for large-scale semantic applications in the distributed organizations. 
>Particularly, we aim at improving the capability to handle multiple 
>networked ontologies that exist in a particular context, are created 
>collaboratively, and might be highly dynamic and constantly evolving."
>
>Here is the NeOn basic defintion: "A Network of Ontologies is a collection 
>of ontologies related together via a variety of different relationships 
>such as mapping, modularization, version and  dependency relationships". 
>Indeed, all fundamental troubles are in assumptions and presumptions.
>
Glancing at the content, one might start
questioning the promised tools and applications
for justified reasons. First, instead of a
variety of diverse, modular, individual
ontologies, the Semantic Web implies an
integrated collection of domain ontologies (
knowledge bases) supported by a common global
schema as a "standard ontology for machines and
people".


Dear Azamat,

A lot of people (including myself) believe that
it is both extremely unlikely, not to mention
undesirable, that a common global ontological
schema will become a "standard ontology for
machines and people". And indeed, if you look at
the SW as it is today, you can already see
thousands and thousands of alternative
conceptualizations. This is why the NeOn project
is developing a variety of practical solutions
that focus on enabling the development,
maintenance and use of networked ontologies,
rather than assuming that some individual or
organization will give us the 'global ontology'.

Very Best Wishes

Enrico Motta

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Received on Tuesday, 6 January 2009 22:29:32 UTC